Rate My Professor Joe Toscano

Toscano's research specializes in speech recognition and language comprehension, examining how listeners recognize words despite acoustic variability, the development of these processes, and their malleability in adulthood. His laboratory employs behavioral experiments, cognitive neuroscience techniques including EEG and fast optical imaging, eye-tracking to measure lexical activation, and computational models of unsupervised statistical learning to study speech perception across timescales. Notable publications include 'Decoding speech sounds from neurophysiological data: Practical considerations and theoretical implications' (Psychophysiology, 2024, with M.E. Sarrett), 'Effects of experience on recognition of speech produced with a face mask' (Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 2022, with A.M. Crinnion and C.M. Toscano), 'Effects of face masks on speech recognition in multi-talker babble noise' (PLOS ONE, 2021, with C.M. Toscano), 'The time-course of cortical responses to speech revealed by fast optical imaging' (Brain & Language, 2018, with N.D. Anderson, M. Fabiani, G. Gratton, and S.M. Garnsey), and 'Electrophysiological evidence for top-down lexical influences on early speech perception' (Psychological Science, 2019, with L.M. Getz). He has received an NSF CAREER Award, a 2022 Villanova Research Catalyst Grant for experiential and neurocognitive mechanisms of language adaptation, and funding from the Hearing Health Foundation for cortical EEG measures of speech sound processing.